


follow you home

by andreawritesandrambles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pack Feels, stallison brotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreawritesandrambles/pseuds/andreawritesandrambles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She needed a family more than she needed me.”<br/>“Lydia has never needed anything in her entire life and she has asked for very little, but she wanted you.”<br/>/Or: the pack deals with loss even without the supernatural.</p>
            </blockquote>





	follow you home

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write a Stydia fic and it somehow derailed into a Stallison brotp kind of thing in the way?  
> Anyway, this has been sitting in my laptop since May and I just wanted to get it out there so that I can start writting again,  
> Warnings: underage drinking and horrible coping techiques that should in no way be encouraged.

_“Two headlights shine through the sleepless night_  
And I will get you, and get you alone  
Your name has echoed through my mind  
And I just think you should, think you should know  
That nothing safe is worth the drive”

\- Taylor Switf “Treacherous”

Stiles’ hair was ruffled by the winter breeze as he hid behind the pale bushes, his hands jammed into his parka’s pockets and his mind anywhere but the task at hand. His eyes shuffled nervously around the playground, and the hammering of his heart just about placated when he spotted Allison and Lydia sitting close by - he didn’t like it when the girls were out of his sight, his mother had warned him to always look out for the two of them.

He could feel, rather than hear, the moment when Scott’s footsteps approached his hiding spot, and he yelled before his best friend could catch him.

“Okay! You got me. Let’s do something else.” Try as hard as he might, he could never quite mask the fact that he would much rather be watching Lydia braid Allison’s hair than play hide and seek with the six year old standing in front of him.

“You never want to play with me.” Scott complained for what felt like the millionth time to Stiles. “You get boring in the winter.”

“I get _cold_ in the winter, Scott.” He mumbled grumpily in return before sitting himself close to Lydia, burring himself under her huge blanket.

“Oh, don’t get whiny know.” Allison’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’ll play hide and seek with you.”

Lydia’s hands stilled in her hair. “You are the worst living-doll ever, Ally.”

Allison smiled apologetically as she stood up and walked away, yelling behind her shoulder. “Okay, Scott, shut your eyes and count to twenty!”

Stiles’s heart jumped a bit at the lost sight of his friend, but Lydia’s hand on his knee placated him a bit. It would be almost funny, how careful this nine year old was of his friends, how worried he was about losing them, if it were not as sad. He was so determined not to lose anyone anymore, not after his mom, not after the look he could see plastered on his dad’s face on a daily basis.

He hung onto other people for survival, he hung onto the three of them.

It was almost as if Lydia could sense his anxiety before it came over him, and she was getting used to distracting him with soft words and random facts which he stored in his mind forever. And it worked for him, listening to Lydia’s interesting rambles, watching Ally’s hair float around her as she chased a smiling Scott through the playground.

Days like these came around more often than not. Sometimes they would play at the park, ending up with messy hair and scrapped knees, other days they would spend sitting around the McCall’s coffee table playing board games and watching TV.

The four of them had lived within five minutes of each other since birth, and had befriended one another like most neighborhood kids had, like it was the most natural thing to do. As time went by and the afternoons at the playground turned into nights out, ice cream runs into alcohol shoplifting and cold hands warmed by the cigarettes on their fingers, they grew up, as intertwined as ever, never apart.

 .

 

The day Allison’s mother dies is -not- coincidentally also the day “Ally” as they know her turns to dust. It’s not even five minutes after the call that would change the thirteen-year-old’s life forever and she’s already running, her feet almost raising from the ground. She doesn’t even know where she’s going, or so she tells herself.

It’s not until the familiar white picket fence and blue walls come into view that she realizes she had been sprinting here. In the end, she figures as she turns the knob around and all but crashes into his bed beside him, it is not unusual of her to find comfort in this boy - this boy who has been her rock, _their_ rock, throughout her whole life.

“Hey, is everything okay?” His voice is muffled by his pillow, but his eyes are awake, searching her face for the answer to a question he is pretty sure he is going to regret asking. “Where’s Scott, did something happen?”

Allison can’t help but laugh at that. Stiles is asking for his best friend like he’s the only one who can shake her, the only one that rattles her perfectly placed ponytails and makes her heart beat abnormally fast. (The irony of the situation is not lost to her, how simple her life had been just a few minutes ago.)

“It’s nothing, go back to sleep.” She doesn’t have much experience with grief, but she knows this. Time is all she needs for now, time and her best friend by her side snoring softly into the night.

“Sure.”

And just like that, Stiles is fast asleep again, his back to her.

Sometimes, when she thinks really hard about it, she marvels at the fact that the two of them are even friends. He’s rain where she is a hurricane, he’s calm when she wants to burn the world down. But he is what she needs right now, when Scott’s soothing words would carve even more wounds into her heart and Lydia’s scared eyes would instill in her a kind of courage she does not feel strong enough to master.

So she chooses this, letting her thoughts run rampant in her own head.

 

When she wakes up, there’s nothing but darkness. Allison stands from the bed and makes her way to the dresser, where there is a black dress and a note surely waiting for her.

_Be ready by eleven, your dad is coming for you. He said you had to wear that._

_-Stiles_

And scribbled under, with loopy handwriting she recognizes to be Lydia’s:

_It_ _’ll be alright, Ally._

Allison’s not even sure what alright means anymore. How can she be alright, and be motherless at the same time? How can she be the same person, when the person who made her who she is does not stand by her side any longer?

She decides right then and there that it is impossible. And so she is determined to change her tutus for black cardigans, and her ponytails for dark curls. Because, if her mom’s not there to see her ballet recitals anymore, then what’s the point? (It doesn’t feel right asking anybody that question.)

 

Even if the psychologist in her mother’s hospital ward had “prepared” her for this, the funeral roles by in a blur. She remembers seeing faces of people she hadn’t seen since she was a baby. She remembers long, drawn-out sermons and teary eyes. But most importantly, she remembers Scott’s hand in hers, his voice sweet in her ear. _“Squeeze as hard as you want, Ally.”_  

(“Allison.” She bites back her remark for now.)

If she closes her eyes hard enough, she can still see the determination and severity in her father’s eyes, to get through the day like any other. She can hear the mumbles of Stiles and Lydia’s bickering, just behind her, spitting out retorts even as they huddled together for warmth - and comfort, she presumes.

Funerals, she read somewhere, are for the living. The dead are already at peace, watching from afar, something akin to content in their hearts - at least that’s what Allison wishes for her mother.

“Walk me home?” She hears Lydia ask Stiles from behind her, and she can’t even fathom to think about her own journey back, the steady rhythm of her father’s driving that had always succeeded in putting her to sleep.

“How can I even sleep anymore?” The question falls from her lips before she can stop it, and the tears follow suit.Stiles’s eyes lock on hers, like he is trying to instill some kind of wisdom into her soul, some kind of warning. _You won_ _’t,_ she can hear coming from his mind, while he gives her a small smile as a welcome to the dead mother’s club, she thinks bitterly.

She doesn’t miss the way Lydia’s glance wavers over her before grabbing his hand and pulling him along, leaving her to grieve, her tears traveling from her cheeks to Scott’s t-shirt.

And somehow, that’s enough. They’re enough.

She doesn’t even know why she ever doubted they would be.

 

.

 

The light blue jeep jolts to a halt yet one more time, and it takes just a chuckle from Scott to get him going.

“I don’t see you complaining when I drive you three to school! Or when I help you take your bike to the shop, so don’t be a bitch.” He grumbles, kicking his door open popping the hood.

“Oh, get over yourself, Stilinski.” Lydia’s voice is playful as she dials triple-A, a number she had saved on her phone for the sole purpose of moments like this. “I would drive you guys if it was not for your macho-pride and sense of masculinity you get behind the wheel.”

He can hear Allison’s laugh all the way outside.

“Shut up, Lyds.”

One of the perks of being the older boy was getting his own car, or so Stiles thought. Sure, Lydia had turned sixteen two months before he did, but he was already better at driving and had the latest curfew out of the four of them. (Not that Allison respected hers, but still.)

“That’s it, kids.” The mechanic turns to them, expecting to be paid.

“You can just charge it to the card.” Lydia smirks, before signaling for the rest of them to get back into the jeep.

“I’ll pay you back.” Stiles swears to her, his eyes on the road as he resumes their drive to the local liquor store.

“Nonsense, it’s not like my parents would even notice.” He doesn’t miss the hint of hurt in her tone, despite the level of expertise she has at masking it for annoyance. “They barely know what I do these days.”

“Hey, it’ll get better.” Somehow, as if having a mind of its own, his hand comes to rest on her thigh, and it would feel awkward if it did not feel so right.

“Yeah, whatever, just hurry up and get us some booze.”

Stiles does as he’s told, sneaking a glance at Allison and Scott cuddling in the back seat, before speeding a little over the limit and parking just outside the store. “Time to work your magic.”

Lydia all but shimmies out of the car, pulling her green blouse down to reveal more cleavage. “I’ll be right back.”

And she is, not even five minutes later, with a bottle of vodka and one of rum.

It is moments like these, when the windows of his car are down and Lydia’s hair is up in a messy ponytail, her smile as big as the sky, Scott’s hands steading Allison’s trembling ones as she pours herself yet another glass, it’s moments like these that make life worth living. Stiles isn’t even bothered he can’t drink on the account of driving them all back home, he relishes in it, the responsibility.

Also, there’s the plus side of seeing Lydia Martin really drunk while sober, and that’s not an opportunity he’s going to pass on any time soon.

They play drinking games, Stiles clutching a coke in his hand and laughing at the way his friends get their words all mixed up - except for Lydia, who, he has learned, is even more articulate with five shots of hard liquor in her. They play and sing and joke, and looking back at all the crap they’d had to put up with, he feels almost alright.

(He knows Allison’s not, it doesn’t take an idiot to notice her far away glances and her teary eyes in the middle of the most random situations, but she’s getting there.)

 

“Okay, time to go home.” Stiles grabs the bottle from Lydia’s slender fingers and screws the cap back on.

“But there’s almost half a bottle left!” Allison whines. She is the one to suggest these outings most of the time, not that any of them can blame her.

“Yeah, but there’s no more _head_ left in you.” Scott chuckles back, before handing Stiles the other bottle and securing his and Allison’s seat-belts.

The drive home is silent, except for the sound of the two teenagers kissing in the back seat, and it takes all of Stiles’s self-control not to honk right then and there. He is distracted, however, when the strawberry blond girl sitting beside him grabs his hand, interlacing their fingers in a tight grip.

“Thank you.” She whispers and he swears her words carve a line in his soul. Her other hand turns the volume of the radio up, up, up, and the boy can’t even bring himself to care about disrupting the neighborhood, focusing instead in the feeling of her soft hand in his.

He drops them off one by one, stopping at Lydia’s last. The silence that’s come upon them is anything but awkward, and he is beginning to suspect she’s fast asleep in the seat beside him.

“Hey, Lyds?” Stiles shakes her awake, biting back a laugh when he sees the way her eyes flare open as if scared out of a peaceful sleep. “Do you need help getting up?”

“I can handle myself.” Her words are blurred, but her eyes are focused, reeling with a thousand thoughts a minute, a sight Stiles is used to witnessing when she is drunk.

“Okay, night then.”

When he reaches to unlock the door for her (never getting of the jeep because he knows he would never hear the end of it from Lydia), he doesn’t miss the way she hesitates before planting her lips in the corner of his in a chaste kiss.

It’s not even a kiss on the lips, more like in the corner of his mouth, and she’s out in a second. He watches as she struggles to open her door and disappears behind the huge walls before putting the car on reverse.

He can’t get the stupid grin out of his face for a week.

Their books are propped open all around his room, Chinese take-out plates scattered everywhere and Lydia can practically _feel_ the anxiety oozing out of him like hurricanes, rather than waves.

“Would you stop that.” It’s not a question. Her hand stills his leg once more as it bumps nervously against hers at the head of his bed. “I can’t study if you keep moving.”

“Sorry.” Stiles mumbles for what feels like the millionth time. “I can’t keep still, I’m too hyped up on Chinese, let’s do something else.”

“You want to do something other than study for the SATs? The SATs we’re taking in three days?”

“Yeah, okay, no.” He scoffs. He is so close she can feel his warm breath on her face and feel the racing beat of his heart close to her. She straightens herself on his bed before she loses her mind and kisses him - not that she’s been thinking about it since she came in here.

Lydia has definitely not been wondering what his lips would feel like pressing on hers, what his hands would look like tangled in her strawberry blond hair. She has not been daydreaming about what his upper body would look like if he just got hot already and took off that damned sweatshirt and - _okay,_ she needs to stop now. She will be dammed if she loses her self-control, she’s still Lydia Martin, after all, and she’s nothing if not cautious.

“I’ll quiz you.” She offers, mostly to distract herself.

Going over her cards with him, his hair a mess and hers tied neatly in a bun, his eyes on fire as he answers her question as quickly as he can, as precisely as he can, feels like home to her. There is not one test in their four years of high-school that she remembers not studying for with him. And sure, Allison and Scott join in once in a while, but this - this constant back and forth of knowledge and bantering, this is exclusively theirs. Exclusively Stiles and Lydia’s.

She wonders if it will ever change, if they will part ways when they leave for college. Of course, she has been a little worried about this her whole life, the anxiety dormant in the back of her mind for a _ges,_ but lately, it’s different.

Lately, she has realized it’s not studying with him she would miss, not the comfortable feeling sweeping through her bones but rather the fireworks he sets on her skin, and the sensation like she’s about to throw up every time he so much as looks at her. Lydia is not stupid and she’s not a fool, she is aware she’s crushing on him, _god,_ she wants him. Not that she’s going to tell him that. Seriously, couldn’t he just _take a hint?_

It’s a game they’ve been playing for the past year, and she can’t get it out of her head how right it feels. Their whole lives they’ve been playing this game, and it is moments like these, when his hands are flying up in the air as he rambles on answers that are far more detailed than necessary, it is moments like these when she figure she doesn’t care how long it takes as long as they get there.

“Lydia? Are you listening to me?” His words pull her back to the situation at hand.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. That was correct.”

“Always is.” Stiles raises his eyebrows, probably sensing the shift in her mood. “Hey, is everything okay with you?”

He sounds genuinely worried, and that fact alone would tear her heart to pieces even if it was not accompanied by him placing his hand firmly on hers.

“Your exasperatingly annoying attention to detail in these answers is getting on my nerves, that’s all.” She dismisses rapidly, hurrying to disentangle their legs and gain some leverage over the situation. He catches her lie even behind the bitter remark, just like Lydia knew he would.

“You know you can talk to me, right? I mean, I’m not Allison, and I’m most definitely not Scott, but I can listen, for you, I can.”

Stiles’s hand grabs a piece of hair to tuck behind her ear, and she swears the tears in her eyes are a product of two weeks of constant stress and most definitely _not_ because of the yearning for this boy that has been clawing at her skin for months.

“Don’t worry about it.”

They go back to revising after that, and it feels almost the same, except for the way she links their ankles together hoping he will serve as her anchor to a world she catches herself constantly sneaking out of.

It works. (It always does.)

 .

Touch has a healing power, or so Lydia read somewhere. It has to be true; otherwise there would be no other explanation as to why his hand in her waist and her head on his shoulder seems to be a common occurrence for them lately.

She puts it all down to the trouble they’ve been overcoming, helping Allison through her grief has brought on some of their own, and it seems wrong even mentioning it, but she knows Stiles feels it too.

They hold hands secretly at the movies one night out with Scott and Allison, his thumb tracing patterns across her palm and she knows it should have a calming effect, but it gets her heart hammering in her chest.

When she can’t take it any longer, she slips her hand from his, offering a lame excuse before exiting the theater through the heavy metal doors. The cool night air brings chills to her warm skin, but she is thankful for the relief. Her flowered dress and black tights are barely enough to cover her from the cold winter outside, but her coat is hanging loosely over his lap back inside, and hell would freeze over before Lydia got herself in the situation of having to go back inside.

She doesn’t even know when she started feeling like this, like she had to control herself around him. If she was prone to over thinking there would be an ironic comparison there about how he used to be the only one she truly felt comfortable enough around not to hold back at all. But she is not, so she just knows she doesn’t like it. And if there is anything Lydia Martin does not like, she fixes it. 

It would be really easy to fix, her rational mind tells her. Just crash her lips to his full ones, thread her fingers through his already messy hair and claim what she is aware is already hers. (It’s not like she’s under the impression this is a one-sided-infatuation kind of deal, she _knows._ She is constantly catching him while staring at her, his mouth agape in something akin to awe, and it would not take a genius to figure out Stiles does not only see her as his friend anymore. But she is one - a genius, that is, and so she _knows_ and, frankly, it’s driving her up the wall with frustration _.)_

She’s left breathless at the image, and she takes a sit in the curb to process this when she feels his presence behind her.

“I’m done with this crap.” Stiles’s words are sure, and she can’t even bring herself to turn around before he’s kneeling down in front of her. The tension between them is so tangible she swears she could touch it if she moved, but she is weirdly frozen in place. Green eyes meet whiskey gold ones and there’s so much pent up longing in the moment that it takes her breath away yet again.

“Stiles-” Lydia begins to say, not even sure where she’s going with it but knowing his name on her mouth is enough to keep her grounded. “I- what are you doing?”

Her mind is still reeling with unanswered questions but his hands are on her hips like she’s daydreamed a thousand times over the past few months and that alone is enough to keep any doubts at bay.

“Lydia, please shut up and let me kiss you first?”

The words are so innocently his that she can’t do anything but nod, holding back a moan as his lips crash into hers. It’s messy and sweet and desperate all at the same time, and she is vividly aware that they are outside the movie theater, probably easy to spot by half their sophomore class, but all resolve falters when his tongue caresses her bottom lip.

She loses herself in the kiss, in _him,_ grabbing the neck of his trade mark plaid shirt and sinking farther into his body, almost levitating from the sidewalk. And _god,_ this boy is going to be the death of her.

And of course, because he is Stiles, and she is Lydia and they are fifteen and madly attracted to one another but also unwaveringly unlucky, they don’t hear footsteps approaching before the characteristic roar of Scott’s laugh and the awkward “guys?” that Allison mumbles forces them to break apart, panting for air.

It doesn’t matter much, though, because he holds her hand all through the drive back home and kisses the corner of her lips before she gets of the jeep.

And, that night, lying in bed purposely ignoring Allison’s incessant texts that keep lighting her phone screen, she decides that she’s willing to give in to every desire of her heart and even crash her walls down for him if she can be sure he’ll be there to catch her.

It only takes a look into his honey gold eyes for Lydia to trust him with her life.

.

Rainy days should be the bearer of grievous news, Stiles figures. Standing outside in the summer breeze, the sun casting a golden shine in Lydia’s hair doesn’t seem like the appropriate setting for the words that are leaving the Sheriff’s mouth.

_“I’m so sorry, kiddo.”_

_“I’ll take you to the hospital right away.”_

_“I came as soon as I heard.”_

_“D.O.A.”_ Dead on arrival, finally a puzzle he can figure out.

He’s still sitting on the hammock in his backyard, his hand placed firmly around Lydia’s middle, and he can’t - for the life of himself - think of a good enough reason to let her go. Her emerald green eyes are screwed to his dad’s blue ones, and he finds himself contemplating how she should be shaking, trashing against him, sobbing, honestly, she should be doing anything but staring straight ahead, as if lost inside herself.

“Lydia? Are you listening to me?” Apparently, the Sheriff has caught onto her fugue state, but it doesn’t take long before she’s standing up, tugging him up with her in the process.

“Can I go see them?” She’s eerily calm, but Stiles can sense the storm that’s ranging inside her body as if it was in his own.

Stiles acknowledges that she is strong, probably the strongest person he knows. He is aware that her body is strong, and her mind as well, but her heart is as light as a feather despite the titanium walls she has built around it, brittle and breakable by the softest of blows, and he can’t even look at her as the whirlwind of the news washes over her pretty face.

All he can think about is how he would take the blow for her if he could, and how she doesn’t need him to.

The drive to the hospital passes by in a haze, his rational mind questioning every statistic theory ever exposed, because how could this be happening yet again to one of them? How could the grief concealed in their hearts not be sufficient already to balance out the forces of the universe?

How could something as harrowing as this happen to someone as _magic_ as her?

Stiles takes a moment to text Scott and Allison to hurry there before joining Lydia back in the waiting room and liking their hands yet again. She has not let one single tear roll down her perfect cheekbones so far, but she is squeezing his hand so hard he is certain there will be several bruises there the next morning.

Not that he minds, he will be right back by her side offering her his other hand to squeeze as hard as she desires.

Their friends arrive ten minutes later, and as they all sit in silence, he is left questioning, yet again, everything he thought was true about the world.

Things Stiles took for granted:

Car accidents happened at night, when the darkness made it hard to see into the road and the asphalt was glistened wet with dew.

Things that actually happened:

Lydia Martin’s parents died in a car crash on their way back from church, on a bright summer Sunday morning, the week before their daughter turned sixteen.

Things that Stiles would never again take for granted:

Lydia Martin’s wicked smile as she climbed up his tree over his bedroom window and declared with a triumphant look that she had refused to go to church and would be having pancakes with him and his dad instead, that very same morning.

 

That night, Lydia sleeps at Allison’s as dictated by the judge, as she waits for her grandmother to come and “make the necessary arrangements”. She tangles her legs with Ally’s - Allison’s, she corrects herself, not Ally anymore, not since _her_ mom died.

Lydia wonders if something like that will happen to her, if she will need to reinvent herself in order to survive the murderous ache that has settled over her chest. She figures ignoring it would probably work best, though, as she casts a shimmer of ice over it with her almighty emotional prowess, numbing the throbbing zone. The ice queen, kids used to call her back in primary school. The ice queen it is.

“My dad took me to see golden retriever puppies yesterday, can you believe him? As if a _puppy_ is what I need. What I need, if you ask me, is most assuredly not a dog, when I already have Scott and Stiles to take care of, and to keep me company, why would I ever need a dog?..” The raven-haired girl keeps rambling in her ear, her fingers tracing patterns along her spine as she lulls Lydia to sleep in the best way she knows how, with long, unimportant rambles and soft caresses.

And, little by little, she lets herself fall asleep to the rhythm of her best friend’s voice, and the unshakable feeling that one Stiles Stilinski is sitting right below this window in the backyard, protecting her even in the most unnecessary ways because he could not protect her in the only one that counted.

She wishes he could see himself through her eyes and see how _alive_ he makes her. Maybe that way he could forgive himself from this nonsense of guilt he has casted upon himself.

 .

Lydia’s grandmother is supposed to arrive that night, and that, apparently, should restore some stability back into her life. She finds it funny, how her granny’s visit is supposed to serve the purpose that Stiles’s hands on her skin are serving at this very moment. It isn’t really clear to her how they ended up tangled behind the kiddie playground in the park, his hand up her skirt and hers wrapped tightly in the neck of his shirt. She pushes her tongue inside his mouth and relishes in the butterflies it brings to her stomach, finally finding a feeling different than grief within herself.

“Lyds.” He breaks the kiss, panting loudly. “Shouldn’t you be getting back? I can think of a thousand things Argent would do to my head if he found us right now.”

“’Told Allison I was going for a walk to clear my head, they are not expecting me back soon.” She dismisses annoyed at the interruption, linking his lips back to hers with urgency.

“Besides,” she continues, as Stiles’s mouth is preoccupied trailing kisses along her collarbone. “Argent’s going to kill you anyways when he finds out you stole this bottle from his liquor cabinet.”

She motions to the rum currently sitting half-empty beside him and he takes his hands off of her for a second, to pour another round of shots.

“Oh, please, it’s not like it is the first time. And, more to the point, it’s not like I do it by myself. He should be thanking me, actually, for not letting Ally get wasted on a weekly basis on her own.” The bitterness in his words is not lost to her, but she ignores it for the time being.

“I really needed this tonight.” Lydia admits, not really caring anymore to hide the brokenness in her tone. She doesn’t have to hide it around him, not the pain, or the sense of drowning that she keeps masked under false smiles and tight dresses.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

His retort is supposed to be lighthearted, she knows, but it is loaded with something else, something akin to long-term promises and a devotion she has become used to seeing plastered on Stiles’s face.

All these thoughts are giving her more of a migraine that even the rum burning her throat is not able to muffle, and so she looks long and hard into his gold-brown eyes and caresses the inside of his mouth with her tongue.

“Lydia, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but this is just not working anymore.” Lorraine Martin’s green eyes are hard set on her identical ones, an expression that reminds her of her father’s glance. “Come on; think of it the logical way.”

_Did she really just say that to her?_

Lydia scoffs and turns to look at out the window instead, unable to control her astonishment.

Okay, sure, if she thinks really hard and focuses in something other than the pit that’s forming in her stomach (which, actually, feels more like a black hole prepared to swallow this city in its whole), she can see the logic behind this plan.

She will be leaving anyway for college in a year and a half; the application sheet to MIT is already sitting in her drawer upstairs ready to be mailed once the due date rolls around. She is leaving anyway, she knows that, and it really would be easier for her grandmother to be back in Boston where she has lived her whole life and knows things and has some kind of normality. The kind she used to have a month ago before she had to put a halt in her life to come to Beacon Hills to raise her orphaned granddaughter.

Sure, she _gets_ that.

What Lydia doesn’t understand, however, is the need to leave right now.

A month ago, she couldn’t conceive a reality that was void of rides at the back of Scott’s bike, or shopping sprees with Allison, or video game marathons with Stiles. She didn’t need to, not yet, not when they had what was left of junior, and the entirety of senior year still ahead.

“Can I just have a few days? When do you need to be back in Boston?” Her voice is soft and resigned.

She is Lydia Martin after all, and if there is one thing she does, she endures.

“I was thinking on leaving at the end of this term, so you had time to settle in before starting school back there.”

At loss of words, she just nods her head and turns back to the window. She watches as the clouds roll by in the blue winter sky and wonders _why now, why this, why me,_ while listening to Lorraine cook dinner in the kitchen.

Once she is fed, her grandmother considers her duty fulfilled, and excuses herself into her room, where she has been spending most of her time since the accident. Lydia can’t really blame her, she lost a son after all, but it seems like everyone is forgetting she lost her _parents._

Both of them, in a swirl of events that seem unreal to her even now. So she takes her jacket and car keys and sneaks out of her bedroom window.

She drives the short way to Scott’s, her hands tight around the steering wheel, anxious at every turn and every stoplight. It’s not like she can’t drive, even at sixteen, there’s very little she cannot do perfectly, but she doesn’t necessarily like it.

Lydia knows, had she called, Stiles would have been at her driveway in a minute, ready to pick her up and drive her back to Scott’s, but she has asked that many times from him in the last weeks. And besides, she really feels like doing something for herself.

When she finally gets there, she takes a minute to slow her heartbeat, and she can feel Allison’s eyes on her even without looking into the window.

They are doing exactly what she had expected, what they did every Friday night. The three of them pretend to pay little attention to her when she sits herself next to Stiles, but she can practically _hear_ their thoughts buzzing in her ear. Allison is spread on Scott’s chest and he is lying on his couch, both of them clutching little bottles of vodka. Stiles, however, is noticeably sober, and he reaches for what seems like his first beer at the sight of her.

(The thought occurs to her, fluttering, that he has been keeping himself sober waiting for her phone call to pick her up, and it melts her heart a little bit.)

 “Hey.” She tries to keep her face straight as she takes her sit and tries to immerse herself in the halfhearted conversation going on in the room.

“I’m throwing a party next Saturday.” Allison announces like it is news, like she doesn’t do it every other week, like she doesn’t end every one of them with vomit in her hair and Stiles half carrying her, half dragging her to bed while Scott throws everybody out and Lydia attempts to clean the mess they left behind.

“I’m moving to Boston.” Lydia says, as an answer. She doesn’t really know what she had expected, but what she did not see coming, was Allison throwing up right there on the carpet, Scott cursing and grabbing her hair, and Stiles, _Stiles,_ looking at her and only her, with what looks to her like actual fear in his eyes.

“What do you mean you are moving?” He seems almost oblivious to the puking happening in front of him. “When?”

“At the end of this term, my grandma doesn’t really like it here, she is used to big city life, you know.”

“But _you_ like it here.” It would sound like an accusation if he was not looking at her like that, like she had taken his world from him with that simple declaration.

“It isn’t really my choice to make, Stiles.” She finally gets up and goes into the kitchen to find something to clean up with, because she cannot stand another second of their eyes on her.

“Okay, I get that, but tell me this.” He sounds more determined than Lydia has ever heard him as he walks up to her and places a hand to her cheek forcing her to look into his eyes. “Do you want this?”

Of course she doesn’t. She would never want to leave without them, not when her parents have _died,_ and even though her grandma is the only family she has left it doesn’t feel like it - not when she is with the three of them and feels more at home than in her own house.

It takes just one jerk of her head and he’s off without uttering a single word.

.

“Dad, please, just think about it.”

“You realize what you’re asking me for, right? You do actually understand that this is in no way like getting a puppy or a new car?” The Sheriff is looking at him like he has lost his mind, but Stiles hasn’t been so sure about anything his whole life.

“I know, dad. This is the only thing that makes sense. You know Melissa can’t afford to, and Mr. Argent wouldn’t even consider it. Not with everything so fresh in his family.”

(And yeah, sure, he can see the fault in this plan because come on, he may not be a strawberry blond, five foot three girl and his name might not be Lydia Martin, but he is not stupid and he _knows._ )

“Stiles, this is Lydia we’re talking about, you know I care about her like my own daughter, all of them I consider my kids, but Stiles, think about it. It’s not the easiest solution there is. I know all of you’ll miss her, but she was going to move anyways soon.”

He looks into his dad’s eyes and begs him to understand. Because sure, she was going to move eventually, but not like this. She was going to move into a dorm, possibly an apartment at some point and _of course_ Scott and Allison and him would follow, because that is what they do. They would end up living in some crappy two bedroom place and sharing electricity and groceries bills, bickering over what movie to watch and cramming for their respective exams together. They had a plan, _he_ had a plan, and nowhere in there was it estimated that Lydia would be taken away.

Sure, she was moving anyway, but that was before all this crap was handed to her, and she has lost sight of who she really is - Stiles can tell - and if there is anything he can do to keep her from ending up as vanished Ally- from ending up like _that,_ he will take that chance. He will take any chance to see her come back into herself, even if he had to cut off an arm. (He is surprised the thought doesn’t even repulse him anymore.)

“Lydia needs us, I know she is strong, dad, but she needs us. I can’t stand still and watch as they take her away from everything she’s ever known, not when most of it is already gone.”

Stiles isn’t really certain what finally does it, but he stares in awe as the Sheriff nods his head slowly.

“Okay, kiddo. Have her come around here tomorrow morning and we can talk about this.” He disappears into his room and Stiles can’t really believe he’s won.  He can’t explain the feeling of dread on his stomach either.

 .

The courthouse is even bigger than Stiles remembered from the last time he was there, standing much shorter at the entrance with Scott on his side on their class trip. This time, however, there are no tour guides or chatty first grade teachers offering historical facts about the building. This time, he is all sweat and nerves, even with his dad’s hand placed firmly on his back, guiding him to the courtroom where the hearing will take place.

“Right this way, Sheriff.” A blond woman motions for both of them to sit down in front of the judge. Stiles looks around the room, finding her in record time. She is wearing a green dress that brings out her eyes, and her hair is tucked into a perfectly ordered braid. He longs to run his fingers through it and untangle the many knots he knows that up do will leave behind.

He suppresses the urge with a sad smile, which she returns, equally as pained.

The social worker next to Lydia presents the case to the judge, making over simplifications like “orphaned teenager”, “would rather stay in this town and finish high school here”, “doesn’t have access to trust fund yet”, and it makes Stiles want to tear his eyes out. Because she’s not a simple teenager and that’ not why they’re doing it, but because she is family and she has always been, and it really is the only way.

He would be sure of it, were it not for Allison’s obvious frown of disapproval and Scott’s weary smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Melissa and Mr. Argent both give supporting statements, vouching for the Sheriff’s capability of taking care of Lydia, and vowing to help in any way they possible can.

And just like that, it’s settled. The judge slams the hammer onto the wooden table and it’s done, Lydia Martin is Stiles Stilinski’s new foster sister.

He excuses himself and barely makes it into the bathroom to throw up.

The night Lydia moves in, he goes into her room to check on her. His dad is already asleep, and the only sound in the house is the creaking of the floorboards as he walks the five steps that separate their rooms.

“Hey.” Stiles mutters once he opens the door enough to stick his neck in.

She is sitting on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Oh, hey!” She smiles a grin that doesn’t quite reach her eyes as she scoots back in the bed to make room for him. “I was wondering how long it’d take before you got yourself in here.”

He throws her an awkward grin and sits at the end of the mattress, his heart hammering in overdrive because this is the closest he’s been to her in the whole day.

Lydia positions herself on top of him and threads her small hands in his hair as she goes in for a kiss.

“No, Lyd-” He moves away from her, placing his hand on her hip to steady her and he swears it takes all of his willpower to keep himself from attacking her neck with his lips. “This is not what _this_ is, okay?”

“Wait, what?” She’s on her feet in a second, disbelief plastered on her features. “What do you mean _this?”_

“I- I mean - I mean.” He stammers, coughs. “I mean, we can’t hook up if you’re staying here. We can’t date if you’re my foster sister.”

“Stiles, everyone knows you’re my boyfriend.” She laughs a manic laugh, and _god,_ this week is taking a tall on her because she is not usually this dense. “Wait, was this part of -”

“Of course it was part of the deal!” He all but screams at her. “Foster siblings can’t date, my dad’s lawyer advised that we didn’t say anything about our relationship to the judge so that he would let him adopt you, but he made me promise I would end it with you. We could face charges for this kind of stuff.”

“You didn’t tell me any of this! I would’ve never let you-”

“And that’s why I didn’t, Lyds - Lydia, look at me.” Stiles walks up to her and cradles her face between his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes. “It was the only way, okay? You get to keep your life and finish school with Scott, Allison and me.”

“But I don’t get _you_? What kind of deal is that, Stiles?” There are tears in her eyes, and it breaks his heart. “Did you think for a second that I would agree to this?”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know what else to do, I couldn’t let them take you away.” He is crying now too, and he thinks this is all too messed up for fifteen.

“I get why you did it, I do.” Her eyes are cold as she walks away from him, backing herself onto the wall. “It was still not your call to make.”

He goes to kiss her cheek and she pushes him away until he’s finally out in the hallway, finally shutting the door soundlessly after him. That is the last time she speaks to him that month.

 .

 

Ever since she moved in to the room next to him, Stiles hasn’t been able to fall asleep without checking up on her. She is usually asleep by the time he opens the door and sticks his head in, or at least she pretends to be. She is lying on her side and her knees are drawn up to her chest, like they seem to always be now. The floor creaks beneath him and he begs to whatever god there is that she hears it and finally talks to him, or even yells at him.

However, Lydia just shifts in her sleep and he leaves the door opened an inch, sitting with his back to the wall next to it.

“Stiles?” He hears a familiar voice call from his room. He stands up reluctantly, casting one last glance in Lydia’s direction to find Allison, as always, stretched out on his floor with a bottle of rum between her legs. A sigh of relief escapes him when he sees the cap is still on.

“Tonight’s not good, Ally.” He lowers himself next to her. “She’s still not talking to me.”

“And you’re really surprised?” Allison rolls herself so that she’s on her side, looking at him. “I tried to tell warn you, Stiles.”

“What was I supposed to do?” It feels like the hundredth time that question’s fallen from his lips, and it leaves a bitter feeling at the pit of his stomach every time. “They were going to take her away.”

“You made an impossible choice, no one thinks otherwise.” Her voice sounds tired, and her eyes fall shut, but he feels the energy coming out of her in steady waves, the almighty Ally A.

The silence between them is never uncomfortable, but tonight it feels charged with conflict.

“She needed a family more than she needed me, Ally.”

“Lydia has never needed anything in her entire life and she has asked for very little, but she _wanted you.”_ Her certainty brings tears to his eyes, because the world just had to come in and fuck up the thing he had been hoping for since elementary school.

“I made the right choice, I made the decision I know she would’ve made for me.” Stiles is just as certain, because he is not regretful, he is just so, _so_ tired.

“Yeah, well, it was not yours to make.”

Stiles swears to himself, that in the 15 years he has known Allison, he has never felt for her anything other than love, but as he looks at her now, he is overpowered with a sense of hate that surprises him the most.

“What do you even know about anything, Allison.” He stands up so abruptly it sends her rolling sideways. “I really don’t need this right now, okay?”

He hopes she can see the regret in his eyes at the outburst, but most of all he just wants her to understand how fucking _helpless_ he feels all the time.

“You’re an asshole.” She bites back. There is not an ounce of their usual camaraderie left as she stares into his eyes one last time before disappearing out of his bedroom window.

He is left wondering, once again, just how much someone can screw up his life in a matter of weeks.

.

He wakes up one night from a scream he is surprised to hear not coming from his own mouth. Stiles has gotten used to screaming himself awake ever since her mom died, and then Allison’s mom did and it just never stopped.

He is, however, not used to being awoken by another scream, and it scares him twice as much.

At once, he scrambles off the floor where he had landed, and dashes to her room, already shaking with anticipation.

“Hey, hey, Lydia.” He tries to speak softly but it comes out rather panicked. His dad is away working on a case, and he knows Melissa is just a phone call away, but at the moment all there is is him.

And just how ironic is that, that he is the only one there to calm Lydia down when all he seems to do lately is work her up.

“Hey, hey!” Stiles starts to get worried when he finally locks eyes with her and notices her fear stricken face. “Every thing’s okay, hey, I’m right here.”

He tries to breathe steadily, like his dad does for him when he is having a panic attack. In four times, out six. Ever so slowly, Lydia starts to get her breath back.

“Jesus, what was that?” She seems genuinely intrigued, and that’s what finally does it for him. He starts laughing so hard he has to sit down on the floor by her bed, clutching his stomach and trying to regain composure.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now.” Lydia does not sound amused, not at all, but it takes only one glance up from Stiles to see that she is containing some laughter of her own. About three seconds later she gives in, and cracks up for what seems like the first time in _ages._

He watches in awe as Lydia’s head flies backwards, her eyes crinkle and the dimples he had grown to adore appear in her tear-smeared checks. Stiles had tried to forget about the things he loved about her, he had forced himself to let go of the way her voice sounded strained just after a make out session, how she looked so small without her heels on when she walked around in his kitchen, the manner in which she talked when she was excited about something and how it lit her up all the way to her eyes. He had been unsuccessful, however, in getting rid of the memory of her laughter. Stiles sometimes thought that if he were to die, the last thing he would see as his life flashed before his eyes would be those dimples of hers and her perfect pearly teeth.

He had missed her laugh so damn much it almost made him forget about their situation for a whole minute. Almost.

“I can’t do this anymore, Lyds.” The nickname sounds strange in his mouth, almost foreign, as if it were from another life, one he had not revisited in too long. “I- I thought I could, if I had you, but with all this bullshit you’re doing, the silent treatment thing, I just- I just can’t.”

Any playfulness in his tone is long gone. It takes her a second to compose herself, but sure enough silent Lydia is back, empty glance and all.

“No. You’re not doing this anymore. _We’re_ not doing this anymore. Just let me have it, all of it.”

“Oh, you want to ‘have it’, don’t you?” Her icy tone would be frightening to anyone but him. Never him. Because, how can he be scared of her when she is all he’s ever wanted? “What do you want me to say, Stiles?  Do  you want me to fucking thank you for what you did?  Do you want me to recognize your heroic actions? Do you want me to be astounded by your self control?”

He would rather she slap him in the face.

“I just want to understand why you’re being such a bitch.” He hadn’t planned on confronting her like this, he really hadn’t. But once the words are out, he finds himself actually believing them.

“Excuse me?” Her frigid persona is gone now, and he can see the old Lydia rising out of her shell. It would be exhilarating if he were not so worked up. “You want me to apologize for being a bitch? Why don’t you get off your high horse and apologize to me!”

“Apologize for keeping you here, for keeping you _home?_ For sharing everything with you so that you don’t have to live all the way across the country when you just lost your parents? Why don’t you tell me, Lydia, what the hell did I do wrong.”

Stiles can feel the tension rising between them, and he knows this will either make them or break them, but he is tired of this war being fought with cold glances and long stares. He needs heat, he wants words, even if they hurt the hell out of both of them.

“Has it ever occurred to you, that all I ever wanted was you?” She begins to walk over to him, and he realizes they had been standing in opposing sides of the room this whole time, as far away from each other as possible. “Have you ever thought about what _I_ wanted? Sure, you took me in, you saved me from having to leave when I desperately wanted to stay. But you shut me out, Stiles. You left me alone to deal with all this bullshit.”

There are tears rolling down her cheeks as she places her hands on his cheeks. He busies himself running a hand through her long hair.

“Allison tried to help.” She continues. “Even Scott texts me every three hours to know how I’m doing when he’s not around.”

He knows what she is trying to say even though she can’t say it. _Everyone came through but you._ And. _I’ve never lived closer to you in my entire life, but I’ve never felt more apart._

“I just wanted you to stay here.” He feels small, like a little boy, and finally, he can admit what he’s been trying to deny even to himself. “I know I said I did it for you, but the truth is I wanted you to stay for me.”

 “You’re the most selfish asshole I know.” Somehow, it sounds like a term of endearment.

He hugs her then, and cries with her because that’s all he can do. They fall to the floor together, him caressing her hair as she clutches him hard between her arms and cries as hard as she needs to.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers later, when only the flutter of her eyelashes against his neck tells him that she is still awake. “I am here for you; I’m always here for you.”

They fall asleep like that, her face in his neck and his hand on her hip, lying on the floor.

The Sheriff finds them the next morning, and kicks Stiles in the sheen to wake them up for school. If he thinks any of it, he doesn’t let on at the breakfast table.

.

Somehow, sometime after the confrontation, things go back to the way they were. Almost.

Lydia starts hanging out in his room again (with the door open), they ride to school together, get lunch at their favorite dinner and even have movie nights with Scott and Allison.

The story with Allison is a different one.

Scott and Lydia don’t seem to notice her giving him the cold shoulder, because why would they? She keeps getting drunk in their nights out, partying with all of them and making jokes at Stiles expense. She even seems to start getting back to normal.

It’s the things they did alone that they don’t anymore. She doesn’t climb up his bedroom window, never texts him to skip class with her and he swears he notices her flinch the one time he calls her “Ally” after their fight.

They are fighting but it’s not even a fight at all, and it’s driving him up the wall.

“Wanna hang out after school?” Scott is looking at him expectantly, holding his motorcycle helmet in one hand.

“What, you’re not hanging out with _her?”_ He hates how petty he sounds, but he is a petty asshole after all, and he just wants his best friend back.

“What’s going on between you two anyways?” So much for no one noticing.

“She’s just mad at me, Scott, she’ll get over it.”

“Maybe you should get over it, Stiles.” His tone is anything but friendly and, in that moment, Stiles is sure the Ally-and-Stiles secret blood pact has grown into a distant memory. “Maybe you should get over _yourself.”_

“Hey, hey, I’ve tried apologizing to her.” He tries to defend himself and winces at how childish he sounds.

“Going over to her house once is not trying, not even for you. Allison was just trying to get you to understand, Stiles. You and Lydia are over it, right? Why can’t you make things up with her too?”

“You think it’s easy? You know her as well as I do, Scott-”

“I don’t think I do, I don’t think anyone does, actually.” Scott doesn’t sound jealous, not even slightly. He is just looking at Stiles with pity in his eyes because he knows, he knows she’s the sister he never got and he’s her rock, and Scott is many things to both of them, but never that.

“I’ll talk to her.”

 

Stiles winces in anticipation when the door of the Argent house opens before him. He’s always known Allison’s dad hates him, and he is fairly certain the man has every reason to. That’s why he’s pleasantly surprised when he opens the door wildly, casting one paltry glance in his direction before motioning to the staircase with a mumble that sounds an awful lot like “About damn time, really.”

He climbs up the stairs, two at a time like he has done since they were kids, and stops in front of her door, gathering up any amount of courage left inside of him. He goes to take out the bottle of rum he hid in his backpack but stops himself; picturing Lydia’s pretty disapproving face at his actions. _“Get it together, Stilinski.”_

Stiles nudges the door open with his right foot and steps in, only to find her sprawled on her bed, a book that looks like it’s written in  Latin covering her eyes from the sun pouring through her window.

“Hey, Ally?” He doesn’t know what he expects, but it’s certainly not her falling off the bed with a loud thud at the sound of his voice.

“What the hell- what are you doing here?” She doesn’t sound mad, actually, just slightly annoyed and curious, like she did _before._

“I just wanted to come and - ah, crap, I’m sorry, I really am.” He stumbles to get it all out in a rush.  “I was just under a lot of stress and I should’ve never treated you like that, I’m sorry.” He sits himself on her couch and watches warily as she takes in his words.

“You’re an asshole, you know.” There’s a smile tugging at her lips, and Stiles is amazed once again with the feeling of absolute marvel that comes from seeing his friends smile. He misses the smiles, he would give his left foot to have the effortless smiles the girls used to throw at him and Scott like they were the easiest thing in the world back.

“I missed you.” Stiles throws an arm around her shoulders when she sits down next to him and relishes at the weight that feels lifted of his own.

“Yeah, I missed you too.” She sighs against him, wiggling her toes in the air. It strikes him once again how different she seems, _good_ different _._

“Hey, is everything okay with you?” He pokes at her side and stares at the wall in front of them, giving her as much space as she needs.

“I just -” Allison was never one to struggle with words and it unnerves him to no end, how difficult everything seems for her ever since _then._ “I want things to go back to normal. I don’t want to be this tragic, suffering girl anymore. I want to be, I want to go back to liking who I am.”

“I like who you are.” He doesn’t miss a beat. “I like who you are no matter what.”

“Yeah, but you have always thought of me as the _before_ me. You’ve always seen the old me, and even adjusted yourself to fit into the new me. But I don’t want that, I don’t anymore.”

There are tears in her eyes, but they seem like relief coming out of her in steady waves rather than the chaos that they appear to cause in Lydia’s usually calm demeanor. He has always found fascinating how different Lydia and Allison are, and just how much said differences strike him like a bullet in the oddest of times.

“I’m sorry, okay? And I’m here, the rest of the way.”

They fall asleep like that, in the middle of the afternoon, with her head falling on his lap and his arm annoyingly budding into her side. They fall asleep with ease, like permanently joined people in a world where nothing seems permanent anymore.

.

Things seem to get back to normal for the most part.

“Stiles, come on! We’ve been driving pointlessly for half an hour already, can we go eat sometime before my funeral, please?” Jokes like that are somehow funny again, and it brings a newly found ease to Stiles’s heart to hear Lydia banter with him like before.

“I know where we’re going, okay? We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago!” Allison buries her foot into the back of the driver’s seat. “I might have to eat Scott’s fingers if we don’t get there soon.”

Lydia snorts at the look on Stiles’s face. “Gee, Ally, I thought you said those were kind of useful, you know -” He gets an empty water bottle thrown at his head.

“I don’t talk to you about that stuff!” She yells back unamused and trying to ignore the smug look on Scott’s face as he twists in his seat to throw her one of his best charming ear-to-ear smiles.

“Yeah, cause you talk to _me_ about that stuff.” Lydia’s retort is not a beat off, and Stiles has to physically fight the urge to grab her hand and kiss her knuckles like he used to when she made a witty comeback.

“We’re here!” He exclaims instead, rapidly turning off the engine and rushing out the Jeep.

The building in front of them looks like many others inside of the Beacon Hill’s border. The walls are painted the usual ivory-like color and seem to be mainly consisted of glass window that allow the four of them to spy on many families and friends groups like themselves laughing and digging into their burgers and extravagantly big milkshakes. The slightly askew sing on top of the glass door reads in faded red letters: “Lori’s Diner”.

“We drove for half an hour to get to another diner?” Allison’s incredulous tone is silenced by Scott’s lips on her cheek.

“Hey, at least there’s _food.”_ The darker skinned boy rushes into the establishment with his girlfriend on tow.

Lydia hangs back, resting her back against the Jeep and a look in her eyes that tells him she knows what he’s doing.

“I thought we could use a fresh start, a new place.” He admits, squinting his eyes at the sun and rubbing his hand sheepishly through his hair. “It’s not a long drive and it’s just outside of town and it doesn’t have all the memories of your - and Ally’s- and I just -”

“You want something to feel untarnished from all of that.” Stiles is not even sure why he even thought he needed to explain anything to her. “I get it, Stiles.”

She takes a look at the diner and back at him, and he can see in her watery eyes and flat lined smirk that it’s not enough, that it’ll never be enough.

“Thank you.” She kisses his cheek and stands still for a minute, her hand against his racing heart, before following Scott and Allison inside.

He takes a moment to steady himself and make a commitment that he will not play footsie with her under the booth table like they happen to do every time they go out to eat.

 .

They try to stay silent during movies, they really do. The four of them have tried any sort of arrangement possibly imaginable, even resorting to sitting Stiles and Lydia in opposing sides of the McCall living room, where neither of them are really able to watch the screen comfortably.

Somehow, however, they always seem to end up sitting next to each other whispering things back and forth and suppressing snorts every time Allison or Scott try to fruitlessly shut them up.  He honestly can’t imagine watching a movie with her in the same room and not be able to hear her sarcastic remarks at the goody two shoes lead, or having her hear his twisted theories about various plot points in the movie that never quite end up playing out that way in the screen.

As much as he loves Scott and Allison, movies are his and Lydia’s thing, and its usually what they resort on doing while their friends go out on dates just the two of them. When they were together, prior to the whole adoption thing, their movie nights usually ended up with them hooking up on the floor of his living room, her bra lost in the sea of dvd’s that never made the cut, and his shirt tossed away to some corner of the room.

Stiles tries really hard not to think about those times as he watches the movie with her tonight. His dad has gone upstairs, claiming he needed an early night after an stressful week at work and it’s just the two of them sitting cross legged in the floor, their backs resting on the sofa. He can smell her shampoo on her wet hair, and it’s taking all of his self-control to refrain from running his hands through the damp tresses of strawberry blond.

“I prefer the Andrew Garfield movies.” Lydia musses absentmindedly, her eyes fixated on Toby McGuire’s face as he takes of the Spiderman mask in the TV.

“Of course you do, because you like Gwen Stacy better.”

“Who doesn’t?” She answers, arching her back against the couch. “She’s smarter, funnier, quirkier, and a lot more _real_ than Mary Jane ever was to me.”

_I like Gwen because she reminds me of you._

“Yeah, and the story arch was better too, I wish they had kept going.” He says instead, refusing to make eye contact with her. “You know, in the comics…”

They end up staying up until the sun rises the morning after, and they find having to quiet down their laughter to avoid waking the Sheriff up as they sneak back into their rooms.

Stiles falls asleep as soon as his back hits his mattress. He dreams about Lydia in a long light green jacket, purple skirt and boots falling from a clock tower, but he is able to catch her every time, and she beams up at him with her emerald eyes shimmering as she lands safely into his arms.

.

His heart feels like it’ll hammer right out of his chest as he wakes up that morning. The sleeping pills his dad used to sneak into his late night juice drink are officially a thing of the past, but the nightmares keep coming and going, like crushing reminders of a curse he can’t seem to shake off.

The dream comes to his mind vividly even as he stands up and stumbles out of his room into the hallway.

_“He killed me!” His mom’s voice echoes through his ears as he stands completely still in the hospital’s waiting room. “He killed me, John.”_

_The Sheriff is looking at him like he’s a monster, holding his dying wife in his arms as blood gushes out of her stomach and pools on the floor._

That’s not even how she died. _He tries to tell his subconscious, but of course he can’t, he can’t think logically of even feel his hands as he runs them through his face. His face. His seventeen year old face. As soon as he is aware he’s dreaming, his heart seems to slow down, and he counts backwards from twenty, evening his breathing._

“Stiles!” Lydia’s voice finally breaks him from his trance. “Hey, _hey,_ what’s wrong?”

He can’t feel his legs or his arms and he collapses on the floor with a thud, but his eyes never leave hers. She kneels near him in a rush and pushes his hair out of his forehead, muttering something about happy thoughts, before everything goes blank.

He is aware he’s not passed out, but everything seems really far away, like he has entered a completely new realm of his brain where not even the morning light can get to him.

All of a sudden, he is brought back by the feeling of Lydia’s lips on his. He feels like he can breathe again as he latches onto her waist and simply breathes her in, pressing her against him.

“Shh, Stiles.” She murmurs as soon as she breaks away from the kiss. “I love you.” The confession seems to come out of her like she can’t stop herself, and it takes a single look into her eyes to know she doesn’t regret it.

“I love you.” She repeats herself, and he takes in what feels like his very last breath. “And I know you love me too, and I can’t just sleep in the room next to yours and pretend to be your fucking sister, and I don’t care who might come and -”

He crashes his lips into hers and _moans_ at the way she seems to unravel between his arms. Her hands find a home behind his head as she tugs at the hair that’s grown too long at the nape of his neck. Stiles can taste the coffee on her lips mixed with the salt of his tears, and it fires him on, sucking on her bottom lip.

“Shit, Lydia, we shouldn’t.” Stiles stands up, dragging her with him and trying to put some space between the both of them.

“You don’t get to push me away anymore.” Lydia’s got her stubborn, bossy trademark Lydia look on her face as she pushes him into his room. “I would back away if I knew you were doing it for the right reasons, but Stiles, I’m almost eighteen.” She pauses to look at his face and, apparently finds any confirmation she needs before straddling him against his bedroom wall. “I want you, I know my odds, and I’m taking my chances.”

“Lydia -I.” The words are stuck in his throat and he struggles to get them out because she can’t think he’s _rejecting_ her. Stiles is pretty certain that there isn’t any universe out there in which he isn’t madly in love with Lydia Martin, and despite every and all the bumps in the way, he’s going to make sure this one is where they get their happy ending.He smacks his lips together and tries to think of something, anything to say to her to prove what he knows she already knows, to make her see the love that seems to run in his veins.

“You sleep on your left side because you are used to your old bed facing the wall that way. You chew off the red pieces of the gummy worms and only write in blue ink.” Lydia seems dumbfounded at his rant, but lets him continue. “You have a favorite spot at every classroom in school, and you never take an exam without your golden star pendant necklace on. You count to twelve, not ten, when taking time and you could, and probably would, survive out of chicken ramen where it not for my cooking.” He places his hands on hers and tries to match his heart to hers.

“You are smart and superstitious at the same time, you are the most bewildering paradox to ever exist and there isn’t a way in which I could ever stop loving you, believe me, I’ve tried.”

Her eyes are glistening, but her smile is one of the biggest he has seen on her face since the accident, and it feels him with a warm feeling in his chest he has come to recognize as _home._

“I want to do this right.” He continues, as he runs intertwines their hands. “There are just eight more months till both of us are eighteen, and we can go off to college and start fresh away from here.”

“Eight months.” She echoes, like a promise.

When he kisses her for the last time that year, it feels like a beginning.

.

Stiles slams the Jeep’s trunk door closed and joins Lydia in his driveway. The sun is shining for what seems like the last time that summer and he squints because of the light.

“Got everything you need, kiddo?” His dad smiles at him from the front porch.

“Sure do.” He snakes a hand around Lydia’s waist and she scoffs at his cheesy line, but smiles nonetheless. She untangles herself from him a moment later and throws her arms around the Sheriff.

“Thank you.” She mutters simply into his shoulder as he holds her tight.

“Any time, honey.” His voice is soft, but his eyes don’t look sad. Stiles knows she feels bad about leaving his dad behind, but he can’t imagine a future for her which doesn’t involve MIT. And he can’t imagine a future for himself without her either, really.

“We’ll be fine, dad.” He reassures him for the umpteenth time as Melissa joins them outside the house. She hands him a Tupper full of freshly baked cookies.

“Have a good trip, little boy.” She whispers lovingly into his ear and he stiffens at the nickname, which he hasn’t heard in what feels like a lifetime already. But as her hands ruffle his hair, he feels himself soften.

“Bye, mom.” And somehow the word doesn’t feel like a betrayal, not even as Melissa intertwines her fingers with his dad’s.

The sound of Scotts motorcycle distracts him from the grief clawing its way back into his chest, and he turns around with a grin on his face to see his friend run up to the both of them.

“You leaving without saying goodbye?” Scott roars a laugh as he pats Stiles’s back. “Take care, buddy.”

“Hey, you’re coming down soon, right?” He is past the time where he felt he had to mask the eagerness in his tone. He and Scott had been planning all the visits they can manage to pack into their time off from school even before they had settled where they were going in the first place.

“You’ll see me in two weeks.” Scott’s smile matches Stiles’s.

Soon after, Allison joins them as they all stand in the porch, eating the cookies Melissa baked as they say their goodbyes to each other. Stiles can’t seem to disentangle his fingers from Lydia’s, even as they all start hugging each other for the last time before leaving.

“We’ll see you all soon!” He closes the door of the Jeep and turns the volume up to the Top 40s on the radio.

And as they drive away, Lydia’s hand resting on his on the middle console, her hair flying around her face from the wind and her eyes crinkling with laughter at his singing, he realizes he’s never felt more at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end I serioulsy owe you one. This somehow turned really rambly and not the way I imagined it, but I had spent so much time in this I didn't just want to delete it. I hope it, at least, helps with the serious content drought we've bee experiencing in the fandom!  
> As always, criticism is always welcome, and comments would make my day! (If you have any Stydia fics to recomend please leave them in the comments! I'm dying to find new content.)


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